1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the design of systems that regulate the buildup of heat within electrical circuitry. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for regulating the buildup of heat within an asynchronous circuit.
2. Related Art
The dramatic increases in computational speed in recent years have largely been facilitated by improvements in semiconductor integration densities, which presently allow hundreds of millions of transistors to be integrated into a single semiconductor chip. This makes it possible to incorporate a large amount of computational circuitry onto a semiconductor chip. Moreover, the small circuit dimensions made possible by improved integration densities enables this computational circuitry to operate at extremely high speed.
However, as computational operations are performed more rapidly and involve increasingly larger amounts of computational circuitry, it is becoming progressively harder to synchronize computational operations with reference to a single global clock signal. In many cases, enforcing such synchronization greatly constrains the performance of the computational circuitry. To remedy this problem, some designers have begun to investigate the possibility of using “asynchronous” circuits that do not operate with reference to a global clock signal, and are hence not constrained by the need to continually synchronize computational operations with the global clock signal. In many cases, such asynchronous circuits can increase computational speed by an order of magnitude or more.
However, increasing the computational speed of an asynchronous circuit causes the circuit to switch more frequently. This increases power consumption and consequently generates a significant amount of heat. Computing systems typically employ various components to dissipate this heat, such as heat sinks and cooling fans. However, as the computational speed of semiconductor chips continues to increase, and as these chips are packed more closely together to minimize propagation delay between the chips, it is becoming progressively harder to effectively dissipate this heat. This leads to excessive heat buildup, which can cause a computer system to fail, and in some cases can permanently damage circuitry within the computer system.
What is needed is a method and an apparatus that effectively regulates heat generated by a high-speed asynchronous circuit.